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Things fall apart. The Wheel turns on its inexorable course, destroying what exists to make way for new growth. This Sphere encompasses both fortune and destruction. Entropy is the study of the progress of Patterns towards a conclusion, whether destiny or death. It is a Sphere of dynamic change, bringing things to their inevitable conclusion – or even changing their conclusion, giving them a new destiny.

Entropy is neither truly the study of decay, nor is it the study of probability. Entropy is the study of chaos – literally, order and the breakdown of order. Over time, an Adept can learn to predict the patterns of chaos, speed them up or slow them down, and finally see order where there was none before. Entropy is about understanding the patterns and cycles of the world, and learning how to alter their progress.

Entropy is the most commonly misunderstood Sphere, because players think it’s all about chance and probability. It’s not – it’s about fate. A low-level Entropy Adept can only control the fate of things which do not have a ‘fate’ – random events, such as a die roll or a well-shuffled deck of cards. These events do not have a conclusion to progress toward, so it is relatively simple to give them one.

He then learns to tweak the fate of predictable events and simple machines, which only have a minor fate of slowly decaying into scrap. Next, he learns to control the fate of more complex patterns – life, complex machinery, or wild forces, which can have a more complicated fate than simply to live and die. Entropy becomes most interesting at level 5, where the Adept can affect the fate of thought – making it so that an idea will be forgotten, or will become unforgettable. Such an effect on someone’s mind is often called a geas, and can be a life-altering event. An Adept should be careful when toying with fate.

Entropy cannot affect living things directly or do harm to them until the fourth level. Entropy is not the most efficient way of affecting something in the short term – you can weave an elaborate Entropy ritual, increasing subtly the chances that an opponent’s car will malfunction, or you can just use Forces to create a spark in their gas tank.

• Sense Fate and Fortune

The Adept has just opened their eyes to chance and fate, and has learned to see the various aspects of entropy in action. They might use the Sphere to determine which slot machine is ready to hit the jackpot, or which disgruntled employee is slowing down the company. An Adept with nothing but this Sphere could make himself rich in Vegas (although he’d attract some unwanted attention).

They can see very strong blessings or curses on people when using Entropy with Life, or find the weak point in a brick wall with Entropy and Matter. Space and Time might help them find the time and place that something significant will happen – maybe a miracle, maybe a murder.

•• Nudge Fate

The Adept can now subtly and gently tug at Fate. Although fine control over advanced Entropy patterns is out of his reach, the Adept can manipulate events where random chance or pure probability plays a part. He can pull a good poker hand from a shuffled deck of cards, or pull out the one odd sock in the sock drawer. The more complex the event, the harder it is to make it happen. The Adept at this level does not affect any of the Patterns around him directly – he just increases the chance that a likely thing will happen.

••• Affect Predictable Patterns

The Adept has now learned to touch other Patterns directly. He can increase the order or disorder in predictable patterns, such as those of Matter or Forces, and cause them either to become immune to entropy’s effects, or to fall apart rapidly. With Time, he might use this power on random events, causing them to happen sooner or delay them as he wishes. Although Patterns such as Life, Spirit, and Time are too complicated for this level of Entropy, there are advantages to having equipment that you know will never break, as well as making sure your opponent’s equipment will.

•••• Affect Life

Finally, the Adept has overcome a great hurdle, and can affect the very flow of chaos and fate in Life Patterns. Life still remains complex, but the Adept has found where he can affect it – causing sudden aging or protection from harm, and blessing or cursing an entire family line for generations.

Many uses will involve Life as well, whenever the Adept is not only affecting the fate of the target, but the target himself (such as in the above aging example). The Adept can be a great destroyer, bringing disease and bad luck, but also a great healer, by removing such curses.

••••• Affect Thought

The Master of Entropy has learned to take the Sphere beyond mere physical Patterns to the bounds of thought, space, and time itself. He can now impact the very changes of universal concepts. Over time, new things come to a person’s attention, and old things are forgotten – the Master can affect these changes.

Ideas can be changed, evolved, or discarded. With Mind, he might create an idea so strong that it creates change in any who think about it. By spreading that idea, reality itself might be altered. Nearly any aspect of change is under the Adept’s control at this point, and it may be combined with other Spheres for incredible effect.